Fallen Empire Books 1-3

  He turned his head, looking at her for the first time. “Is that inappropriate humor or did you actually do that?”

  “Yes, and yes.” She managed a smile for him, even though his face looked as bad as the rest of him, and she wanted to break into tears. His strong features were bruised, his lips split and swollen, and his eyes so dark and puffy that she was surprised he could see out of them. “I don’t know if it will help anything, but if it doesn’t hurt too much, I’d appreciate it if you told me what happened.”

  “Hells if I know.”

  She frowned. What did that mean? He’d been there, hadn’t he?

  “In the beginning, I watched over the doctor’s shoulder as he researched, and I tried to give him ideas. I thought he might want to investigate old Starseer nursery rhymes since that seemed to be what Yumi had remembered and used to find this place. He told me to go away and stop bugging him.” He paused and took in a slow, deep breath before continuing. “So I wandered through the library, poking into books about the history of the Starseers and some of the artifacts they had created, though my attempt at research was handicapped by the fact that the doctor still hasn’t confided in me about what exactly that orb is or what it’s supposed to lead him to—he’s given the impression that it’s a map or a puzzle, but that’s it.”

  Alisa almost opened her mouth to agree with that assessment, but couldn’t remember if she had learned that information during one of the times she had been eavesdropping on Alejandro and Leonidas. She did not want to confess to that.

  “I asked my guard what he thought it was,” Leonidas said, “but he wasn’t talking.”

  “Your guard being Abelardus?”

  “Yes. He chose to follow me around the library, glaring at the back of my head instead of staying with the doctor. Maybe he thought I was going to leave graffiti on the walls.”

  “You do have the look of a delinquent.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Really, Captain.”

  “Alisa.”

  “I’m supposed to call you by first name when you’re calling me a delinquent?”

  “You’re supposed to always call me by first name.” She smiled at him. “What happened to Abelardus?”

  Leonidas took another deep breath, but it turned into a round of coughs. He winced and rotated his face away from her, as if he did not want her to see that he was in pain. She bit her lip, again wishing she could go over there and wrap her arms around him. It would not do anything to alleviate his pain, but maybe he would find human contact comforting.

  Leonidas wiped his mouth and turned his face back toward her. She swallowed when she saw the fresh blood on the back of his hand. Three suns, he needed a regeneration tank, not a prison cell.

  “I was reading some old scrolls when Abelardus left. He’d been at the head of the aisle, keeping a close eye on me. I assumed he was going to check on the doctor. About ten minutes passed with nothing happening. I heard people coming in and out of the library, of course, but Abelardus did not return. Then I heard the sound of breaking glass—real made-out-of-sand-and-breakable glass, not glastica. Even though I could tell it had happened in a different part of the library from where the doctor was researching, I ran to look. The window, the one where you saw that hole in the wall, was completely smashed open, most of the glass knocked out. There was blood all over the carpet. You saw that.”

  Alisa nodded, the first uneasy inkling entering her mind that Leonidas had been set up.

  “I looked out the window—that tower hangs out over the parapet—and down to the ice. There was a big hole in the ice with blood smeared on the side.”

  “Wait a minute.” Alisa held up her hand. “A hole in ice that is so thick that the Nomad crashed onto it and didn’t fall through?”

  “The White Dragon ship fell through.”

  “After you caused a huge explosion inside of it.”

  “The ice isn’t uniformly thick over the water.”

  “Leonidas, nobody fell out of that window and broke through that ice. You’ve been set up.”

  He sighed. “I suspect that, too, yes. I pointed out the lack of a body to the first Starseers who ran in and started shouting murder accusations at me. They weren’t interested in listening to me. I realized someone might want to get me out of the way so it would be easier to take the doctor’s artifact. Or maybe someone wanted me out of the way just because he or she had a grudge against cyborgs.”

  Alisa grimaced in sympathy. The more she traveled the system with Leonidas, the more she had seen that his kind were either feared or hated. It had made sense for the Alliance to fear cyborg soldiers, after the numerous encounters they had lost to the powerful warriors, but even former loyal imperial subjects seemed uncomfortable around him. Even his own family apparently was.

  “As I said, they refused to listen to me. It didn’t help that…” Leonidas glanced over, almost looking embarrassed.

  “That what? Can’t they see into your mind? They should be able to see that you didn’t do anything, right?”

  “They see what they want to see, like anyone else. And… I did get into an altercation with Abelardus on the way to the library. There were numerous witnesses, and Alejandro had to shout in my ear to get me to let go.”

  “Why? Was he trying to strangle you or hurt you with his mind?”

  “Not exactly.” Leonidas sighed again and lay back on the ice, grimacing as he settled his body. One hand cupped the side of his ribcage. “He was invading my mind, sifting through my memories, and using them to taunt me.”

  “To taunt you? You couldn’t… I mean, I’m nobody to judge, since I’ve been known to unleash my tongue at people who irk me, but I thought you were more mature than I am.” Alisa imagined Leonidas getting tired of dealing with insults and whirling to attack Abelardus. In front of witnesses who wouldn’t have heard the insults if they were delivered mentally. They must have been some serious insults.

  “Remember when I told you cyborgs have fewer physical weaknesses than normal humans but all of the same failings?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s true. I have a temper, just like anyone else. Besides… it was worth clobbering him.” A tight, vicious smile flashed across Leonidas’s face.

  “What did he say?” Alisa asked, knowing Leonidas was sensitive about being called anything less than human.

  All trace of satisfaction vanished from his face.

  “It’s not important,” he said tersely.

  “It was worth clobbering him over something that wasn’t important?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not being that logical right now.”

  “I know.”

  Alisa waited to see if he might expound, but he remained quiet. She rubbed her face, then lowered her hand to massage her throat. Her injuries were insignificant next to his, but her neck definitely felt raw and bruised.

  “So some Starseers came in and saw you standing at the window next to the puddle of blood,” she said. “What happened then? How did a hole get blown in the wall?”

  He looked over at her, a hint of a smirk appearing on his battered face.

  “Enjoyed that part, too, did you?” she asked.

  “Not as much as I wanted to. The plan was to blow a hole in the ceiling and bring rubble down on all of them so I could escape. They had already plastered me to the wall and were holding me there with their powers while they discussed whether I should be killed outright for my crime or held in a cell. It was a surprisingly heated argument. You’d think they would believe in a trial of some sort, even for a cyborg…”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if whatever passes for justice here only applies to their own people.”

  “The old man was there from the beginning, and he was the one lobbying for killing me. He’s the reason I used the grenade launcher. He attacked me with his mind, and I could feel fingers wrapping around my heart, trying to crush it. I swung the weapon, not at him—I knew I’d be in extremely deep takka if I killed any
of them—but at the ceiling. The idea of it falling in on them, maybe toppling some bookcases on them, was still a possibility. Then I could fetch Alejandro and get out of the library and back to the ship. It almost worked, but he realized my intent, and flung another attack, knocking my arm to the side. The grenade went toward the wall instead of the ceiling. It made a mess, but not the mess I’d hoped for. Everyone was still standing afterward—and blocking my way to the door. The old man used the incident as more ammunition for his argument, saying I was too dangerous to be allowed to live. Interestingly, two of the younger Starseers were arguing that it would be much more profitable for them to detain me.” Leonidas turned his head again, giving her a flat look.

  “You should have answered your comm last night,” Alisa said. “I heard from Mica that Beck was chatting with two of the Starseers he was feeding and that details about your warrant came up.”

  Leonidas did not appear surprised as he digested that. Maybe he had already suspected. Alisa hoped it hadn’t crossed his mind for a second that she had been the one to betray him.

  “Do you know if he was openly plotting against me, or if the Starseers were merely extracting information from him?”

  Alisa hesitated. She liked Beck and did not want Leonidas to hurt him—or worse—but if Beck positioned himself as Leonidas’s enemy, it wasn’t her fault. She was already protecting him from the mafia. Wasn’t that enough?

  As Leonidas gazed at her with pensive eyes, she found she couldn’t truly contemplate lying to him here or withholding the information. She resented that Beck had put her in the position where she had to choose one of them to be loyal to.

  “It is possible that he was coerced,” Alisa said, “but you should know that he approached me back on Perun about trying to subdue you somehow to take you to Arkadius and turn you in for the reward. He thinks he could pay off the mafia with the money. I don’t know if it ever went beyond speculation for him, but I could imagine a scenario where he saw the Starseers and their powers and believed they could nullify your cyborg abilities.” She licked her lips. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you earlier.”

  Leonidas touched a lump on his temple. “If I survive this, I’ll have a talk with him.”

  “A talk?” Alisa asked warily, afraid for Beck even though Leonidas wasn’t exploding with rage over the betrayal. “Will it involve shoving his celery seed dispenser down his throat?”

  “It might.”

  He lowered his hand and closed his eyes. The ice had to be bitterly cold through the thin material of his T-shirt, but maybe he would lie there and sleep. Unlike Alisa, he probably had not gotten any the night before.

  “Are you wishing now that you hadn’t been so obstinate about retiring after the war? Maybe that tropical island with the beaches and fancy drinks wouldn’t have been so bad.”

  “Maybe not,” he whispered, not opening his eyes.

  She ought to let him rest, but she was reluctant to stop talking to him in case… in case.

  “Before you left last night,” she said, “you almost told me the one thing that would make you consider retirement.”

  “I did,” he agreed, “but I will not tell you now.” He lifted his head and eyed the camera briefly.

  “Ah. Well, I hope you get a chance to find whatever it is that you seek.”

  He turned toward her again. “I believe you do.”

  She lifted her hand, wishing she could walk the three steps between them and touch his face, offer him some comfort, if only the warmth of shared body heat to deal with the ice. She must have done more than wish and inadvertently moved closer to the boundary, because her fingertips brushed the forcefield. A painful zap ran up her arm as energy flared white with a snap. She jerked her hand back and glowered at the barrier.

  Leonidas shook his head slowly—sadly—and closed his eyes again.

  She withdrew to let him rest while she paced around her cell and considered how they might escape, along with what she would do if they did escape. Abelardus, the man who might possibly know something about her daughter’s kidnapper, was either dead or missing. She had no idea who else might give her information. Nor did she know if she would be able to fly away from here even if she got the information she sought.

  Chapter 12

  After two hours, the dent in the ice floor was depressingly small. Alisa glowered down at her fingernails, wishing they were reinforced with steel or came equipped with razors. Whoever was monitoring the camera was probably laughing as she shaved microscopic slivers out of the ice next to the forcefield wall. She’d had a notion of digging her way out underneath it, but at this rate, that would take five years. And as soon as she made progress, someone would come along and pour water into the hole. As cold as the basement was, the floor would refreeze in minutes.

  She leaned back, her knees numb from kneeling on the ice. “I don’t suppose cyborgs have enhanced fingernails?”

  Leonidas opened his eyes. She hadn’t been bothering him, preferring to let him rest and hopefully heal, but she couldn’t help but wonder if he would have more luck with his extra strength. Maybe it would only take him two years to dig out.

  “I don’t have fingernail implants,” he said.

  “Clearly someone was shortsighted.”

  “After they had already removed most of my bones and replaced them with stronger, synthetic ones, I wasn’t in the mood to volunteer for more surgery.”

  Alisa shuddered. That could not have felt good. “What made you sign up for that?”

  Leonidas sighed, looking up toward the icy ceiling. Maybe it was another story he wouldn’t share with the camera watching. Indeed, his gaze flicked in that direction briefly.

  Alisa went back to scraping uselessly at the block of ice, having little else to work on. She couldn’t imagine lying down to sleep with the frigid floor at her back, the cold seeping through her clothing. She already had to get up regularly to pace around to keep warm.

  “My mother was diagnosed with Delqua, a not uncommon disease for people who grow up on mining worlds,” he said quietly. “If you haven’t heard of it, just ask Mica. It doesn’t have a cure. Gunther and Ivo were only nine and seven at the time. Our father disappeared right after Ivo’s birth. We didn’t have many relatives, nobody except me to take care of them if she passed away, and I couldn’t see myself raising two little boys. I was nineteen. Besides, I—we—didn’t want to lose her. But the doctors gave her less than a year to live. There was an experimental treatment, but it was very expensive, and our insurance wouldn’t cover it. Neither would my part-time job repairing and maintaining housekeeping robots.” He smiled wryly.

  Alisa saw where the story was going and couldn’t manage a return smile.

  “So, I looked into the fleet. A lot of the dangerous jobs came with bonuses that you received after your training, but I knew we needed the money quickly, and the cyborg specialty paid the most. You got half of the bonus after the surgery and then half after your combat training. It was enough to pay for the treatment.”

  “Did it… How did it go?” Alisa asked, though maybe she shouldn’t have. She remembered him mentioning once that he hadn’t often gone home to visit his brothers after their mother died.

  “It wasn’t a cure, but it slowed down the progress of the disease. She had ten years instead of one.” He blinked a few times, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling. “It was worth it,” he said, his voice tight.

  Alisa blinked away moisture in her own eyes. “Why don’t your brothers…” She paused as the realization came to her. “They don’t know, do they?”

  “No. They were young. They just knew that Mom was sick and had to go to the hospital for a couple of months.”

  “You never told them that you paid for it? She didn’t tell them?”

  “I didn’t. I don’t know if she ever did. I know she cared about me and was grateful, but she was also uncomfortable with the trade off, that she had been given more life at the cost of her son becoming someone who took
the lives of others.” He swallowed. “She was a peaceful woman. She didn’t even eat meat because it disturbed her to think of animals dying for her sake.”

  Alisa did not know what to say. She almost wished she hadn’t asked, hadn’t pried. It was such a painful and personal story. What right did she have to know it?

  “Do—did the other cyborgs in your unit have similar backgrounds?” she asked, though maybe she shouldn’t have. Did she truly want a reason to develop sympathy for the empire’s overpowered henchmen, men who had so ruthlessly mowed down her colleagues during the war?

  “Some did. Some had little other choice. Some just wanted to be super soldiers.” He lifted his head enough to look down at his bare legs, and his lips twisted wryly.

  “Is it hard to feel like a super soldier when you’re lying on the ice in your underwear?”

  “Somewhat.” He laid his head back on the frozen blocks. “Most of the people who were just there for the sake of their egos backed out when they learned how much painful surgery was involved and what else you would lose.”

  Alisa tilted her head. “Such as what?”

  He had mentioned the surgery before, but she couldn’t remember him speaking of losing anything else, unless he was talking about the way people saw him now, as something less than human.

  Leonidas looked over at her, his face thoughtful, as if he was debating whether to divulge some secret. Was he? She returned his gaze, trying to look attentive and secret-worthy.

  “I—”

  A door creaked open in the distance. Cursing softly, Alisa jumped to her feet so she could stand in front of her tiny hole and her ice shavings. Leonidas turned his gaze back toward the ceiling and closed his eyes. She hoped that he would get a chance to finish whatever he had been about to say.

  Footsteps sounded on the treads of the steps. Alisa was not sure who she expected to visit them, but it wasn’t Yumi and her sister Young-hee. She watched behind them as they walked away from the stairs, certain that a couple of burly guards with staffs would follow them. A third person did walk into the room, but it was Mica, not a Starseer.